X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) – Spoiler-Free Review

I went into this film with low expectations. In fact going to see it Thursday night was a last minute decision as I had pretty much written off seeing it. While I enjoyed the first two films, I disliked the third and wanted to like X-Men First Class, but couldn’t get over the continuity clashes. With that in mind, I tried to put that baggage aside and take it for what it was worth. And I really liked it.

As most of you probably know, the story is based on the Uncanny X-Men #141-142 (1980) “Days of Future Past” by Chris Claremont and John Byrne. Singer managed a decent reinterpretation of that idea for the movie universe. At first, I didn’t like the substitution of Wolverine for Kitty as the X-Man who was sent back in time as it pulled away from one of the strengths of the Claremont/Byrne story. However, it worked really with the twist the movie put on the time travel. Building on that twist, the story forced several main characters to change instead of having an all-out, city-devastating slugfest.

Peter Dinklage was a cardboard cutout villain despite a solid performance; a bit more backstory to his character would have made a world of difference. As a nice tip of the hat, Chris Claremont and Len Wein made cameos in the film. I liked the future vision of the Sentinels as it reminded me of the Captain Britain nemesis, the Fury (http://marvel.wikia.com/Fury_(Earth-238))

The ending was pleasantly surprising and satisfying. The aftermath left the franchise in good shape with many possibilities for X-Men: Apocalypse in 2016. While we didn’t see the full effects of the changes in the time stream, I’m sure that will be explored and exploited in the next film. I’m hopeful that they can move beyond Singer’s core cast of characters and focus on the broader X-Universe.

1981 - Uncanny X-Men: Days of Future Past

Uncanny X-Men #141-142
January- February 1981
“Days of Future Past”
Writing: Chris Claremont (plot and script) and John Byrne (plot)
Penciler: John Byrne
Inker: Terry Austin

While a lot of fans classify the Dark Phoenix Saga as the ultimate X-Men storyline, I’d argue for a two-issue, cross-time story called “Days of Future Past”. Both Claremont and Byrne are at the top of their game, coming off the Dark Phoenix Saga storyline and still telling outstanding stories.

This story introduced an apocalyptic, dystopian future set in 2013 where mutants are confined to concentration camps and marked with the letter M to indicate their mutant status. The post-nuclear holocaust devastation wasn’t limited to mutants as a number of non-mutant super heroes had been killed by Sentinels enforcing Project Wideawake.

Recognizing their dire situation, a ragtag group of mutants (Wolverine, Kate Pryde, Magneto, Colossus, Storm, Franklin Richards, and Rachel Summers) put into motion a desperate plot to prevent this nightmarish future from ever occurring. Claremont and Byrne in those future sequences, really capture that hopelessness and their defeated feeling.

The use this nightmarish future to up the stakes of this story’s initial problem which is to stop Senator Kelly’s assassination at the hands of the new Brotherhood of Mutants under the leadership of Mystique. Kate Pryde’s essence is sent back through to time to temporarily inhabited her past self, long enough to tell the X-Men how it all came about. “We fought. We lost. We d-died. And now... seeing you all alive -- oh God, I didn't think it would hurt so much.”

In the present time sequences, the character interactions are well done, especially capturing the leaderless X-Men (with Cyclops still on leave) and Storm taking the leadership reins.

They also manage to have a bit of levity in a rather dark themed comic book as Kitty Pryde takes on the Danger Room on her own and beats it!

At this point in their relationship, there was a lot of strife between Claremont and Byrne, but that also forced them to be at their best as they challenged each other. Byrne’s last issue would be Uncanny X-Men #143 and they would part on difficult terms. So looking back, it’s an amazing story to view the collaborative talent they had and also to realize that while they may have gone their separate way, they were never quite as good as this run.

And with the early buzz that Bryan Singer is considering this story as source material for the latest X-Men movie, there’s no better time to check out this truly revolutionary 1980s story.

Some other notes:
- The story’s title was apparently inspired by the Moody Blue’s Days of Future Passed
- Uncanny X-Men was the first appearance of the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and of Rachel Summers
- Interesting to see Mystique teasing at a shared past with Nightcralwer, but that would be an unresolved plot point that would be left dangling forever.